


Food chain

by Qelinor



Category: Tsuritama
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 05:54:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8566513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qelinor/pseuds/Qelinor
Summary: Why did the two alien siblings wanted to snatch back their kin? Just to save the Earth, or…





	

The green-and-blue planet had disappeared from screens long ago, its system star followed it soon. Instead of blackness speckled with light points, gradients of hyperjump were flowing by at the displays, hypnotizing with variations of colors that had no names in human languages

Hyperspace jump was not a very pleasant procedure itself, and this time a influence-damping circuit along the spacesuit collar amplified sickness. Urara swallowed and leant carefully to the wall. The ship was not spacious enough for a human form, but it was not recommended to transform during a hyperjump. Officers of Foodchain Crisis Committee noticed the state of the detained person. Haru smiled radiantly and reassuringly, Coco’s smirk looked rather gleefully

“We've found you anyway, so what was the use to break communication and navigation system and to drown your boat. You just made things worse since you could not identify the planet where you landed, or the type of aborigines, or how to deal with them… And so instead, you came so close to exterminating the whole population”, Coco was still all wired up and angry with the fellow alien for dallying in his school for who knew how many days. “You sad excuse of a pacifist.”

“I regret it,” Urara retorted softly. “At least, I regret it.”

Talking still hurt. Despite high regeneration rate, a hole left in the palate by the human carbon steel hook still felt raw. Even more painful was his vexation at himself for falling for that trick out of pity. Had had been really frightened that time, seeing how Haru had been diving deeper at full speed, and an almost invisible line trailing behind the small yellow fish. Urara recognized him at one – the mouth curve, dips in roundish sides, cold color of fins. Urara knew that this was how land dwellers were catching local incipient and helpless fish, for food or just for fun. He had been helping their speechless kin, he’d been asking the land creatures to go away and entertain them in some other way, let it be dancing or anything. Usually it worked. But that time, deadly line was strung taught, and the two-legged creatures above the waves seemed to be either deaf or extremely dense. He had rushed to Haru, gripped the glittering item to tear it away, even if it would cost his kin some flesh and blood. Despite any divergence of their views and opinions, he could not let the opponent end his life inside stomachs of local fauna. In a split second, Urara noticed that Haru was smiling. And then the hook hidden among small sort-of-stones pierced jaw of the purple fish, and the yellow though totally under his influence now, still held to the ring of colored beads and dangled beside him.

Urara had fought against the pull, ordering the locals above to get away but they remained strangely imperceptible, and only after many long minutes of hopeless thrashing and fight he had realized where Haru had spent his last powers. But it was too late.

“– yup, food chain disruption is bad, no matter what your reasons are,” still sulking, Haru joined the reprimanding with his best mentor voice. “Higher species eat lower ones, predators eat producers, sapient creatures eat the non-sapient ones. I understand why you didn’t try to contact humans. The Earth is two thirds an ocean, and we are used to think that sapient life dwells in oceans. And land life might have looked different to you from the sea bottom. But you could see clearly that evolution had left local fish without much brain power. So, what was the sense to run away from our home? You had to gather your own feeding school all the same–“

“No!” Urara objected suddenly. A sharp movement resulted in another fit of giddiness. He took two deep breaths before he could continue. “I did not eat them.”

“Er… Then, what have you been eating all that time?” Haru eyed him with a genuine amazement.

“Algae. Or already dead ones, Earthen fish don’t live long. How could I make their life even shorter? I tried to explain to them that it’s wrong to eat their kin. I protected them against surface creatures. Sure I could not save all the fish in oceans, but at least my school–“

“It is not your school,” Coco snorted. “Yours is loafing around uselessly in our home world. Evolution knew better when it arranged that only one or two eggs out of thousands spawned by your parents grow into a sapient fish, and the others are intended to be your feeding stock for your life. It’s a law of nature, and should not be violated just because of some idiotic ideas.” 

“Haru,” Urara turned blatantly away from Coco. “You were communicating with Earthians for so long, you’ve become friends with them, even though they don’t look or think like us. Why cannot you have pity with those who are exactly like you but cannot keep a conversation about weather and other trifles? I don’t get it…”

“Do you mean, innumerable generations before you were wrong, and you’re alone seeing the light?” Coco snorted before her brother could reply.

“Why, am I alone?” Urara was not ready to admit defeat yet. “If I were alone, why would the Food Chain Committee exist? Why would invasive brain correction be invented, if it were so simple to prove that I am wrong?” 

“Invasive correction is developed for those who do not defer to common sense or to any sense at all,” the girl retorted, but her brother stopped her, pulling her by the spacesuit sleeve.

“Coco, wait, mind correction is really the last resort. I don’t want him to go through it at all. So, please, give me one more chance to bring him round. Urara, listen to me please. You know, at that very planet, I heard one really important thing. The granny said it about flowers - fragile weak land plants that would not survive without human help. I asked her why she was watering them if they wilted anyway. And she said, she wanted them to bloom pretty. And it dawned on me. It’s not just about flowers, it can be said about all living beings in the Universe! Everу life exists to bloom beautifully and to help others with it. Just the ‘blooming’ is different. For us and humans it is friendship, talking, understanding, warm companionship. Silly earthen fish don’t have petals or smell, but they have taste. Why should they float in the sea depth for some years for nothing and than die and rot? When we eat them they leave a trace in our memory and become a part of our bodies. It’s a pity you didn’t spend much time onshore. Humans invented so many yummy fish recipes! Sashimi, sushi, vorschmack, boo-ya-bess, herring rolls, canned sprats… And mullet baked with lemon juice! And grilled tuna fillet! And whitebait rice!”

“White…bait?” Urara gagged, unable to breathe lest say anything or stop tears.

“It’s no use, brother. If it hurts him just to imagine it… He would not listen to your reasons, or would hear what he wants to.”

“You… It’s you who…” the detained drew air through gritted teeth. “hear what you want to hear. That woman… She meant something totally different! Even whitebait, hatchlings who haven’t even time to grow up…”

“Just as I said,” Coco turned away and crinkled her nose. “I’ll write a report that the perpetuator is detained and does not show any signs of remorse. Hopeless. Brother, words will not bring him to senses, only a direct cerebral imprinting will help.”

“Oka-ay”, Haru sulked, “but then we’ll return to the Earth all together and eat more whitebait rice.”

 

***  
A company of senior high school students burst into a cafe.

”Hello guys, how’s your catch today?” Natsuki’s father greeted them.

”Hella good!” Haru was the first to chirp out, as usually. “A bucketful of gobies!”

“And one stonefish!” Yuki followed him in listing the trophies.

”And what about you?” Mari asked Urara who had hid in the corner of their table already.

”A sea bass, five gobies and an octopus”, the blue-haired alien answered with a timid smile, eyes cast down.

”Whew!” Sakura showed from the service room. “Why didn’t you take it with you? We’d cook some takoyaki.”

Before Urara could find proper words for a reply, Haru cut in:

”We’ve left all the catch in the Captain's freezer, tomorrow we have picnic! Come with us okay? And today, I want to eat your coolest whitebait rice! It’s so yummy it’s worth traveling to the other side of the galaxy to try it!”

Then the guys dug their chopsticks into the rice in a competition for the craziest combination of spice and seasonings. Yuki was consulting his phone every now and then to check whether a particular mix would not be qualified as an explosive. Haru was piling everything he could reach into his rice without much thought and thus was winning. Urara lagged behind them both.

”Hey, are you crying?” Sakura asked him when she brought second helpings to the competitors. The other guys turned to him. Ex-JFX looked just as surprised as anyone else. He touched his cheek gingerly with a finger, then looked at his hand.

"Seems like that,” Urara grew even more confused. Two more drops fell onto a napkin on the table. “I have no idea, really.”

”Guess it’s tears of happiness”, Haru elbowed him in the side, then stole a lump of rice from his plate. “No, no! It’s because the fifth spoon of wasabi was one too many!”

Everyone laughed. A whole summer of fishing, chatting and feasting on seafood lay ahead.

**Author's Note:**

> I adore dark!Urara stories (all 3 of them found in the internet space), even though he’s anything but evil in my headcanon. So when I tried to write a dark!Urara myself, it turned just the opposite.  
> Well, later, looking through the text, the author realized she can write perfectly evil Urara from here on. But it should be a sophisticated thriller of Death Note type, and the author is afraid she won’t pull it off properly.


End file.
